Once you have a baby, photography suddenly becomes a major part of your life. Where the camera might have remained on the shelf for years except for the occasional vacation or birthday party, now it’s an omnipresent part of your life. You want to capture those fleeting moments of curly newborn-ness, those first little smiles, those chubby thighs at 6 months. But often, the baby just lies there and looks like a lump. Here are 11 easy tips for creating awesome images of your baby, or grandchild, or any baby in your life.

Set aside some time to take pictures.

Really deciding that now’s the time to take a whole bunch of pictures will put you in the mindset of orchestrating your photography.

Place baby in beautiful light.

Is there a puddle of diffused light on the floor by the window? Great! Place a blanket or Boppy on the floor and make baby comfy in that pretty light.

Get down to baby’s level.

One way to make babies look like blobs is to shoot them from above. If you get down to their level, you’ll see all the details in their faces. A quick rotation of the image, and a baby lying on her side turns into an upright, alert baby.

Take a lot of pictures in a row.

It might be your 5th or your 11th picture that really captures that smile
Bring out the birthday suit. Little naked babies are the cutest thing in the world, and the images look more iconic than those in lots of clothes

Think black & white.

A simple conversion from color to black & white can turn an ok image into a spectacular one. It’s the easiest way to make a picture look more iconic.

Photograph all the expressions.

One of my favorite pictures of my daughter is this one of her crying. No, I’m not heartless! It’s just that she’s so little and this is an expression I used to see a lot when she was hungry or tired. Those days are over, and I like remembering these boo hoo’ey baby moments as much as the smiley ones.

Think about backgrounds.

A simple colorless background will put the focus on baby not the blanket. For these pictures, I placed the babies on a flat (and clean!) dog bed, covered with black fabric.

Get in close.

Turn on the macro function on your camera for really close-up pictures. I took this shot of Chloe when she was about 10 days old, using close-up diopters. But the macro function on your point-and-shoot works great too. For more on macro baby shots, click here.

Don’t look, just shoot!

The best way to get those huge grins is to interact with your baby while you’re shooting. They’re not interested in the camera, but they are interested in your expressions. Make goofy faces and maintain eye contact with your baby, while shooting the camera. You don’t need to look through the viewfinder, just trust it and shoot. Check your frame now and then, and keep making silly faces. With a little patience, you’ll end up with a shot like this.

Include others in the pictures.

Seeing a newborn in someone’s arms gives context to how teeny they are. Shoulder shots are a great way to see both parent and baby.